Williams was raised Roman Catholic, the religion of her father. Her mother, who had been raised Baptist, converted to Catholicism when she got married. Williams was baptized at Our Lady of Grace Church in the Bronx. Her mother played the organ at St. Theresa's Church in Briarcliff Manor for weddings and at mass, and Williams used to assist her mother by turning the pages of sheet music.[2]

Williams and her younger brother Chris (who would later become an actor) grew up in a predominantly white middle-class suburb of New York City.[3] Williams believes she may have been the first African-American student to go from the first grade to the 12th grade in the Chappaqua Central School District.[6]

Twenty-five years later in May 2008, Syracuse granted Williams a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.[11] According to Syracuse News, "Williams earned the remaining credits for her degree through industry experience and her substantial performances on stage and screen."[10] Williams also delivered the 2008 convocation address, telling Syracuse seniors to "treasure this moment. These days are irreplaceable and are the beginning of the rest of your life."[12]

Name

Williams is most often referenced and publicly recognized simply as "Vanessa Williams". There is, however, occasional confusion with the similarly named actress Vanessa A. Williams, who is just two months younger. It has been reported that Williams first became aware of Vanessa A. in the 1980s when her New York University registrar told her that another, similarly aged student with the same name and from the same state had applied.[13][14] When Williams appeared as Miss America in a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Vanessa A. accidentally received her check for the appearance, which she returned.[13]

In the area of acting, the two ran into name conflict when Screen Actors Guild rules prohibited duplicate stage naming. Vanessa A. had registered the name "Vanessa Williams" first,[13] so as a compromise, Williams was occasionally credited as "Vanessa L. Williams" in acting credits. To compound the confusion, both actresses starred in versions of the drama Soul Food (Williams in the film version, and Vanessa A. in its TV series adaptation). The Screen Actors Guild eventually took the issue to arbitration and decided both actresses could use the professional name "Vanessa Williams".[14]

Miss America

Williams was the first African American recipient of the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984 in September 1983. Several weeks before the end of her reign, however, a scandal arose when Penthouse magazine bought and published unauthorized nude photographs of her. Williams was pressured to relinquish her title, and was succeeded by the first runner-up, Miss New Jersey 1983, Suzette Charles. Thirty-two years later, in September 2015, when Williams served as head judge for the Miss America 2016 pageant, former Miss America CEO Sam Haskell made a public apology to her for the events of 1984.[15][16][17][18][19]

Career

Music

Williams first received public recognition for her musical abilities when she won the preliminary talent portion of the Miss America pageant with her rendition of "Happy Days Are Here Again" (Williams would later be crowned Miss America 1984).[15] Four years later in 1988, Williams released her debut album, The Right Stuff.[1] The first single, "The Right Stuff", found success on the R&B chart, while the second single, "He's Got the Look", found similar success on the same chart. The third single, "Dreamin'", was a pop hit, becoming Williams' first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 8, and her first number one single on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The album reached platinum status in the U.S. and earned her a NAACP Image Award and three Grammy Award nominations, including one for Best New Artist.[1]

Her second album The Comfort Zone became the biggest success in her music career.[1] The lead single "Running Back to You" reached top twenty on the Hot 100, and the top position of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart on October 5, 1991. Other singles included "The Comfort Zone" (#2 R&B), "Just for Tonight" (#26 Pop), a cover of The Isley Brothers' "Work to Do" (#3 R&B), and the club-only hit "Freedom Dance (Get Free!)." The most successful single from the album, as well as her biggest hit to date, is "Save the Best for Last". It reached No. 1 in the United States, where it remained for five weeks, as well as No. 1 in Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada, and was in the top 5 in Japan, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The album sold 2.2 million copies in the U.S. at its time of release and has since been certified triple platinum in the United States by the RIAA, gold in Canada by the CRIA, and platinum in the United Kingdom by the BPI. The Comfort Zone earned Williams five Grammy Award nominations.[1]

The Sweetest Days, her third album, was released in 1994 to highly-favorable reviews.[1] The album saw Williams branch out and sample other styles of music that included jazz, hip hop, rock, and Latin-themed recordings such as "Betcha Never" and "You Can't Run", both written and produced by Babyface. Other singles from the album included the adult-contemporary and dance hit "The Way That You Love" and the title track. The album was certified platinum in the U.S. by the RIAA and earned her two Grammy Award nominations.[1]

Television and film

Williams has had a successful career in television. Her first television appearance was on a 1984 episode of The Love Boat[21] followed by guest appearances in a number of popular shows. In 1995, Williams starred as Rose Alvarez in a television adaptation of the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie and portrayed the nymph Calypso in the 1997 Hallmark Entertainment miniseries The Odyssey. In 2001, Williams starred in the Lifetime cable movie about the life of Henriette DeLille, The Courage to Love and in 2003, Williams read the narrative of Tempie Herndon Durham from the WPA slave narratives in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives. In 2006, Williams received considerable media attention for her comic/villainess role as former model/magazine creative director turned editor-in-chief Wilhelmina Slater in the ABC comedy series Ugly Betty.[1] Her performance on the series resulted in a nomination for outstanding supporting actress at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards[22] and in 2008 and 2009, she was nominated in the outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series category for Ugly Betty.[1] Williams next joined the cast of Desperate Housewives for its seventh season, where she portrayed Renee Perry, an old college "frenemy" of Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman).[23] In 2016, she joined the cast of The Librarians, as recurring villainess General Rockwell.[24] She is scheduled to star as Maxine on the VH1 television series Daytime Divas in June 2017.[25][26]

Theatre

Williams began her career on stage in the 1985 production, One Man Band, as one of "the women."[30] She followed it in 1989 as "Laura" in Checkmates.[31]

In 1994, she broadened her ascendant music career into a theatrical role when she was cast as the understudy for Aurora in the Broadway production of Kiss of the Spider Woman.[32] In 1998, she portrayed Della Green in the revival of St. Louis Woman,[33] and Carmen Jones in the 2002 Kennedy Center Special Performance of Carmen Jones.[34] In the same year, she was also featured in the Tony/Drama Desk Award winning revival production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, for which she was nominated a Tony and Drama Desk Award for her performance as the Witch. This production included songs revised for her.[35] In 2010, Vanessa starred in a new Broadway musical revue entitled Sondheim on Sondheim, a look at Stephen Sondheim through his music, film and videotaped interviews. Sondheim ran from March 19 to June 13 at Studio 54 in New York City.[36] In 2013, she starred as Jessie Mae Watts in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful, which was later turned into a 2014 television film.[37] In 2014, she starred in the Broadway musical, After Midnight[38] and in 2015 she appeared in a PBS production of Show Boat as Julie La Verne.[39]

Williams is a spokesmodel for Proactiv Solution,[45] and was the first African-American spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics in the 1990s.[46] In 2018, Williams returned as a spokesmodel for L'Oréal as part of their 'Age perfect' campaign alongside fellow ambassadors Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore and Jane Fonda.[47]
She appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2000 as a contestant, and once again on August 10, 2009, as a celebrity guest during the show's 10th anniversary prime-time special editions, winning $50,000 for her charity.[48][49]

In a commercial that began running during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012, Williams voiced the new character Ms. Brown, a brown M&M.[50]

Fashion

In March 2016, Williams launched her own clothing line, V. by Vanessa Williams for EVINE Live.[51]

Personal life

Williams and her mother Helen co-authored a memoir entitled You Have No Idea, published in April 2012. In the book, Williams discusses her childhood, rise to fame, and personal struggles (including life with type 1 diabetes), including the fact that she was sexually molested by a woman when she was 10 years old.[52][53] She also spoke candidly about having an abortion while she was in high school.[54]

Williams is also involved with a number of humanitarian causes. She is a supporter of LGBT rights and same sex marriage, and in 2011 she participated in a human rights campaign entitled "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality".[55] She is also partnered with Dress For Success, an organization that provides professional attire for low-income women, to help support their job-search and interview process.[26][56] In addition, Williams is involved with The San Miquel Academy of Newburgh, a school for boys at risk.[57]

Books

Wiliams, Vanessa; Wiliams, Helen (April 17, 2012). You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other). New York: Gotham Books. ISBN978-1-5924-0759-0.

^"Vanessa Williams's ancestry revealed: One great great grandfather escaped slavery... the other was a politician who left 'a legacy more precious than gold'". Daily Mail. London. February 6, 2011. 'As an African American growing up here in the States, there are a lot of records that we don't have.'